


Rocket Ship Mode

by Innytoes



Category: Leverage
Genre: Age Play, F/M, Hardison and Eliot Use Their Words, M/M, Minor Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Multi, Non-Sexual Age Play, Other, Relationship Discussions, like they're all together but Parker isn't in this fic, mentions of d/s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 14:56:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16307324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innytoes/pseuds/Innytoes
Summary: You didn’t just interrupt movie night with ‘hey sometimes I pretend I’m a little kid because being an adult is hard and it makes me feel better’.Alec takes an afternoon off. Eliot just wanted to grab something from the kitchen. They both Use Their Words like adults, which is pretty funny when you come to think of it.





	Rocket Ship Mode

It was a kind of ritual. Hardison liked rituals, liked structure, liked predictability. Like coding, like gaming, like secret handshakes. There was a set way of doing things, an order in which you did them. You didn’t take on the main boss without levelling up first. You didn’t pick up a violin and start playing a concert straight away, you started with some warm up scales. You didn’t just go from zero to sucking your thumb while playing with crayons in ten seconds. You started with small and worked your way up.

They were on a break between cases, a two week cooling off after their last con had ended a little close for comfort. Sophie had dragged Nate to Italy. He’d put out some alerts to scan the Italian news for key phrases such as ‘heist’ , ‘art theft’, and ‘missing diamonds’, just in case.

He, Parker, and Eliot had taken a few days to assure themselves they were all safe and sound. It was still kind of new, this relationship of theirs, even though sometimes it felt like they’d all been together for years. They’d spent a large portion of that time in bed, hands and mouths carefully skating over bruises, or sometimes just curled up together. After a few days, though, all of them could use some space.

Parker had muttered something about a diamond exhibition in California and had disappeared. She texted him photos of dangerously high views and cats she met (on rooftops, in alleys, at small bodegas) every now and then. He sent her updates on the brewpub, on the dachshund puppy that walked past the pub every day around four, on his attempts to get Eliot to try out his new kitchen laser. Eliot had growled something about testing out some new recipes at his place and had warned him not to bother him with any laser nonsense. He still got puppy updates, though.

He had time. He could take his time. Little steps. Ha, get it? Little steps.

The way this ritual started was checking his phone one last time before putting it on the special setting he’d devised, an icon on one of the last screens you could swipe to shaped like a rocket ship. Rocket ship mode. Like airplane mode, but better. All the complicated functions would disappear, the ones for work, for grown up things. And only true emergencies would get through. Not off the grid, but as close as he was willing to go.

Then he’d change into his comfy clothes. The soft sweatpants were a little longer than his usual ones, bunching up around his bare feet. The same with the sleeves of his shirt, they covered his hands. The right sleeve had a little hole just below the hem where he’d chewed it. His thumb fit through it perfectly.

Next up was the orange juice. When he was Big, he drank orange soda, big bottles of the neon stuff. But that much sugar was bad for little boys. He’d bought a gallon of cheap orange juice, no pulp, the same stuff Nana used to get. He filled half his glass before carefully putting it back in the fridge. Then, holding the glass with two hands, he carried it to the tap, filling the rest with water. He wasn’t sure if it had started as a way of making the juice last longer (there were a lot of mouths to feed, after all), or if the taste had been too strong when he was younger, but somehow, watered down OJ always helped him slip into his headspace.

He carried his glass to the coffee table, putting it down on a coaster before sitting down on the floor in front of the couch and taking a sip. He closed his eyes and took a breath. He tried to let go of all his Big worries. This was his afternoon off.

What was he in the mood for? He had a new Star Wars Lego set waiting for him underneath the bed. Or he could watch some cartoons, he had a bunch of them to catch up on in his Netflix queue. Alec shook his head, taking another sip. He could do both of those when he was Big, too. Sometimes that was enough, but right now, he really wanted to just stop thinking about anything. No, it was Toy Box time.

Alec’s Toy Box was probably a little different than most kid’s toy boxes. Most kids probably didn’t have a fingerprint scanner lock and three different passwords. But other than that, it wasn’t anything special. That was kind of the point.

He pulled it out from under the bed, from the cardboard box it had been hiding in. He was pretty sure Parker had found it before when she’d been snooping, but she’d left it alone after seeing the fingerprint lock. Apparently Sophie had given her a talk about Respecting Privacy recently.

Inside were his blocks, his crayons and markers, his Hot Wheels, his vintage Tetris, his little toy soldiers. There were his action figures, not the Mint In Box kind, or the Rare Vintage Find kind, but the ones he’d seen at thrift stores and dollar stores and that had tugged at some inner part at him, that little voice that said ‘I want that’ that he used to have to push down with a ‘we can’t afford it’. Except now he could, so he did, and then he’d slip them into his Toy Box.

He ran his fingers over them, carefully selecting a few of the figures. As an afterthought, he grabbed some of the blocks as well. Captain America would need a base to break into and blow up, after all.

He played for an hour, starting by quietly constructing a block fort at the coffee table. He was hidden from view by the sofa, which felt safe, and he could sip his orange juice. It always took him a while to let go fully and be as loud and rambunctious as he wanted. He remembered too well not being allowed to do just that when he’d actually been a kid.

Then, as he got into the story more, he moved around. Captain America fell from the back of the couch, only to have Iron Man catch him. They saved GI Jane from some dinosaurs, and then had to break into the mad scientist’s lab to steal the death ray.

He felt himself slipping down, letting go, getting into the story. He didn’t have to think about checking his e-mail, or the e-mails of the several dozen aliases he managed for the team. He didn’t have to worry about the budget for the brew pub right now. He didn’t have to think about the fact that sometimes, in his head, Captain America got a bit of a southern drawl, or that GI Jane performed the exact same series of flips to get past the lasers as he’d seen Parker do.

The death ray was found and destroyed. The mad scientist was turned into a dinosaur, but a small one, a harmless one. Alec grabbed his drink, only to realise it was empty. He stood up, thumb slipping into his mouth as he took the glass back to the kitchen. He had to use both hands to pour the juice, but as soon as he put the jug back into the fridge, his thumb slipped back into his mouth, index finger curling up over his nose.

He turned around to fill the other half with tap water and ran straight into a wide chest, juice spilling everywhere, glass crashing to the floor.

“Dammit, Hardison!” Eliot shouted, hands coming up in frustration as juice soaked his shirt.

Alec flinched, jerking away. Belatedly, he pulled his thumb out of his mouth. This was bad. This was very bad. He had to say something, had to say something smart and funny so Eliot would think he was Big, that he was normal. No big deal, just a grown man getting some orange juice, nothing to see here, don’t be mad, please, don’t be mad.

“-the hell you even doing, just came to get my…” Eliot was still talking, sounding angry as he reached past Alec and grabbed a tea towel, rubbing at his shirt. He tried to remind himself that Eliot wasn’t a threat, he wasn’t really mad, he just sounded that way sometimes, he wouldn’t hit him… But the part of him that was little, the part that remembered feeling small, and helpless, and scared, that part flinched back, blurting out an ‘I’m sorry!’

Eliot stopped grumbling, pausing to look at him. Even though he was taller than Eliot, right now he felt so small. He hunched his shoulders, aborting a movement to stick his thumb back into his mouth for comfort. He had to be Big Hardison now, but it was so hard. Just like there was a ritual to slip down into being little, he had a ritual for coming back up. It was hard to think straight without it, it was like his emotions were so much closer to the surface.

“You okay, man?” Eliot asked, slowly lowering his hands and keeping them open at his sides. Non-threatening posture. Great, he definitely knew something was up. Alec tried not to think about how he’d seen Eliot do the same with some of the scared kids they’d helped. “You stay up too late playing your fantasy game or something?”

An excuse! Great! He started to nod, but that just felt wrong. He didn’t want to lie to Eliot. Lying was something they did to bad guys, not each other. Not unless Nate made him, and he already felt bad about that, which is why he’d wanted some time to be little and they were going to be so mad and- and… He wanted his blanket.

He took a step back and yelped.

“Dammit, Hardison, you’re barefoot?” Eliot growled. “There’s glass everywhere!”

“I’m sorry!” he choked out, foot raised so he wouldn’t drive the glass deeper in. Eliot was mad and he’d made a mess and his favourite sweatpants were dirty now and his foot hurt and he was getting blood everywhere and he didn’t know what to do. He wanted to hide away somewhere quiet, under the covers, where there was no shouting and nobody was mad. He could feel his eyes tearing up, and that was worse, they always got angrier when you cried…

“Come ‘ere,” Eliot said, before sweeping his legs out from under him as he picked him up. Any other time, Alec would have yelped in indignation, would have complained that he wasn’t no damn Disney princess and demand to be put down, but right now… well, right now it felt kind of nice. Almost like a hug.

Eliot gently deposited him on one of the bar stools on the other side of the kitchen island, before bending down to inspect his foot and gently removing the piece of glass from his heel. “It’s not too bad, you won’t need stitches. Let me grab the first aid kit.” He put a tea towel on the floor for Alec to drip on, before getting up. “Stay put,” he said, throwing a worried look over his shoulder before leaving to get one of the three extensive first aid kits they kept around the living quarters.

Alec did what he said, quickly wiping at his eyes before wrapping his arms around himself. He needed to be big for this. He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath, then another. He tried to visualise the steps in his mind. Cleaning up his toys. Resetting the passwords on the Toy Box. Putting his special clothes in the wash, taking his phone off Rocket Ship mode.

Eliot came back, scuffing his feet so Alec could hear him coming. He threw a look at the mess around the coffee table, knocked over blocks and action figures and dinosaurs laying around. Alec hunched his shoulders, waiting for Eliot to comment. But the man stayed silent, spraying a little anti-septic spray on his foot, holding it and rubbing the sides gently when Alec tried to jerk it away at the sting.

It wasn’t until the bandage was on and he straightened up that he spoke, voice painfully gentle, like the time Parker had a nightmare and he’d carefully talked her down (literally, from the rafters, after she’d punched him and scrambled up there.) “Want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked, hand on Alec’s neck to reel him in, and he can’t, he can’t resist it, not when he’s still stuck halfway between headspaces. He closed his eyes and lets his head fall against Eliot’s shoulder. It might be easier with no eye contact, anyway.

“I’m not concussed,” he mumbled, when he realised the hand stroking over his hair was actually looking for bumps. Eliot didn’t say anything, but his hand did still. Alec took a moment, swallowed. “It’s weird.”

“Man, we live with Parker,” Eliot reminded him. “I’m used to weird by now.”

Parker was different, though. Sure, she did childish things sometimes, but she was always herself. She didn’t need a ritual, a bunch of careful steps that helped her let go, gave her permission to not worry. Or, if she did, they involved rope, and rigging, and jumping off of high things. Not orange juice, dollar store toys, and thumb-sucking.

He took another breath. Big thoughts. Adult thoughts. Taxes. Tax evasion. Aliases. Hacking the CIA. Wearing boring socks. Eating vegetables. Coding a new security system for the brew pub that would alert Parker when her favourite alley cat came to visit. Doing the dishes. The stock market. Hacking the stock market. Lasers.

“Before Nana, I was in a bunch of different homes,” he began, haltingly. “Most of them… weren’t great. Some of them just didn’t know what to do with a geeky, black little know-it-all who took apart the microwave in order to put it back together with six new functions. Some were overcrowded, underfunded, didn’t care. Some were just… bad. I didn’t get to be a kid a lot before Nana.” He shrugged a little. “So sometimes I take an afternoon off to… be a kid. Let myself go.”

“Age play,” Eliot filled in for him. Hardison stiffened. “I’ve been around the block, Hardison. I know what kink is.”

“It’s not a sex thing!” he said, pulling back. Eliot’s face didn’t hold any trace of disgust or disdain. He met Hardison’s eyes with openness, acceptance. “It’s not like Parker’s rope thing or when you… when you get on your knees for us.” He flushed. Maybe now was not the time to bring that up, but he really, really didn’t want to be getting down and dirty and have Eliot ask him if he wanted to sit on Daddy’s lap or something.

“Kink doesn’t have to be sexual,” Eliot said. “It isn’t always, for me.” Now that held some very interesting possibilities that they were going to discuss later when Hardison wasn’t baring his soul. “Does Parker know?”

Hardison shrugged. “Nah, man, no one knows.” He didn’t want Eliot to think he’d kept it from just him. Honestly, he was pretty sure Parker would get it, or at least cheerfully not get it but accept it anyway. He’d been more sure about her than he’d been about Eliot, anyway, but it just… had never seemed like the right time. You didn’t just interrupt movie night with ‘hey sometimes I pretend I’m a little kid because being an adult is hard and it makes me feel better’. “It’s not something you share.”

“Bullshit. Lots of Littles have caretakers or other people they play with.” Eliot frowned at him. He looked away, and Eliot didn’t force his head back or move back into his line of sight. The hand on his neck was still there, though, thumb now gently stroking along his neck. Damn it, Eliot knew all his weak spots. “Aren’t there forums or chatrooms or something, just like your little orc friends?”

“There are,” Hardison allowed, not even bothering to correct him on the make-up of his WoW party. When he’d first gotten into this, he’d done his research, trawled the net for everything from scientific research papers and psychology articles to kink forums and chat groups and Little blogs. “It’s just…” He shrugged. A lot of it was either way more sexual than he was comfortable with, or way too shallow.

“When I’m playing videogames, I’m in control, you know? I kick ass.” He didn’t wait for Eliot to roll his eyes about his epic video game bragging rights. “This is… this is giving up control. Even if I run all the background checks, it’s still this whole other level of vulnerability.” One that he didn’t particularly want to give to just anyone. Especially since the few times he’d tried some pushy assholes had tried to make it into a sex thing.

“I get that,” Eliot said. “You know I get that.” Hell, he’d pretty much told them the same about his submission. How it was giving up control, how it was making himself vulnerable to someone. How he needed to trust someone not to go beyond his limits. And Parker and him, they’d done everything they could not to break that trust.

“I just didn’t want you to look at me like I was weird,” he shrugged. He was fine with Eliot rolling his eyes when he got excited over a new sci-fi movie or limited edition Star Wars collectable. He didn’t mind when Parker didn’t remember the names of all the items and characters in his video game campaigns (and really, ‘the magic glowy thing’ got the point across just fine) and laughed when his character got killed in particularly brutal but ridiculous ways. But this was different. And he wasn’t sure how to explain that without making it sound like he didn’t trust them. Eliot still seemed to get it, though.

“Me and Parker love you, y’know? If this is important to you, we want to be there for you,” Eliot said gently, hand drifting up to his hair again. “Just think about it, okay? No pressure.”

“Okay,” he managed, mind already reeling. Eliot and Parker being there for him. In whatever way they were comfortable with, of course. God. That just opened the door to so many things he wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about yet. Or even think about right now. Not with Eliot right there, looking so soft and inviting. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

“You… you need me to go?” Eliot asked carefully, looking at him from under his hair. “I can if you want me to, but you got yanked out of a scene pretty fast, and you know it’s bad manners to leave someone alone after a scene.” And lord, it was not fair that he let his Southern Boy Charm accent slip in there, talking about manners like that. Or the way he looked at Hardison from under his lashes. Or the way he still had his hand on him, warm and gentle. He bet Eliot knew exactly what he was doing. You didn’t have to be a grifter to see through that.

“You can stay,” he allowed. He wasn’t going to be able to get back into playing after this anyway, but Eliot was right, he wasn’t exactly all the way back and fully secure either. A little reassurance wouldn’t be out of place right now. “So… couch snuggles?” he asked, hopefully.

Eliot huffed a laugh, helping him down from the stool. “Yeah, couch snuggles.”

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [Neilwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neilwrites/works) for basically shouting at me like Courage Wolf until I posted, and [Hawkguyhasstarbucks](https://hawkguyhasstarbucks.tumblr.com/) for more gentle encouragement.


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